I'm a FAWM winner!

Wow, 2014 has really put it's dancing shoes on and started to boogie right away!

It was only a week into January when I drove my wagon onto the Spirit of Tasmania II bound for the Cygnet Folk Festival to play with the lovely Miriam Lieberman. I then spent another 3 weeks in the apple isle, visiting my sister for some tap dancing lessons (and a strange encounter with a Dalek (see below), and performing a beautiful riverside house concert at Tin Dragon Trail Cottages in Branxton. It was the loveliest stage I have ever played, see for yourself in the gallery I created here.

My sister and brother-in-law have a pet Dalek- go figure!

Before I had even returned to the mainland I had the crazy notion of joining the crew at FAWM.org for my very first attempt at the February Album Writing Month Challenge. I had known about FAWM for about 6 months, but it really did seem to be a crazy thing to attempt so I filed it away in my internal 'Someday/Maybe' folder and didn't think about it again until a chance mention on Twitter. It then hit me that it didn't MATTER many how many songs I finished. It was far more important to be actively making time for writing. Writing is a hard thing to prioritise but I'm just a cover artist if I don't. Even if I'm covering all of my own old songs!

So... I launched in with enthusiasm and a private goal of 10 songs. The community on the website are fabulous, and as soon as I starting listening to other songs on the website and getting feedback on my own I realised where the real gold in FAWM lies. Great people to meet and share ideas with and even collaborate with if you are game. I HIGHLY recommend it if you want to improve your writing skills or to widen your creative community.

So... as February unfolded I launched in with great enthusiasm, only to get a little distracted midway by all the usual little things life throws at you. When the last week came around and I only had 6 up on the board I was prepared to concede. But one last push from my sick bed (I had a horrible cold/flu thing) and I nudged it over the line at the eleventh hour. I did it! I didn't get all 14 songs demo-ed due to lack of voice during the final couple of days but 10 of them are accessible in their very rough initial form here in my sound cloud FAWM 2014 playlist. I may even get the remaining 4 demos done in the next week or so, so cruise by and visit then :) . I'm only leaving them up for the month of March so have a listen now if you are interested. A diverse bunch of songs and some I'm pretty sure are keepers! You will definitely start hearing them at shows too.

Enough of my self-indulgent songwriting adventures, interspersed with gardening and catching up on Orange is the New Black! I am a performer. It's definitely high time to get back onstage again. I will hit the boards this weekend at the Port Fairy Folk Festival where I have one 'Liz Frencham' set at 1pm on Saturday at the Surf Club and the absolute incredible privilege of being part of the Paul Petran Hosted "Words & Music " concert on Sunday at 2:30pm on Stage 4. Sharing the concert will be a bunch of awesome songwriters including Pieta Brown, Shane Nicholson, Blair Dunlop, Ben Salter, Jack Carty Melody Pool & Michael Waugh. I will also be attempting to fill the unfillable shoes of Cazzbo Johns in Mic Conway's National Junk Band who are launching a new album this weekend at the festival. So look out for that on the program to if you happen to be there.

This month also holds plenty of locals gigs and another chance to play with the beautiful Miriam Lieberman at Yackandandah Folk Festival. So I hope our paths will cross in one of these beautiful venues.